


Forgiveness

by nutmeag83



Series: What If [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Forgiveness, M/M, New Beginnings, Post TLD, Post TST, Post-Season/Series 04, Retirement, Retirement!lock, Starting Over, Sussex, TFP is ignored, but not bees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 02:13:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12378744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutmeag83/pseuds/nutmeag83
Summary: John has regretted leaving Sherlock at hospital ever since the day he ran away, but even more he regrets the pain and hurt he put Sherlock through. Now, as he is deep into retirement, he's given a second chance. Can Sherlock forgive him? Can they have a second chance at the love they ignored the first time?





	Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> This imagines that TST and most of TLD happened, but TFP did not. John left Sherlock in the hospital, never to return. They haven’t seen each other since.
> 
> Not beta'd or Brit-picked. Apologies for the mess.

He sat looking out at the water, as he did most every day. On warm, sunny days, he sat on the porch. When it was cold or rainy, he sat in the sun room. He told himself that he didn’t know why he did it. That it was just a beautiful view, that he had nothing better to do. He was old and weary; he deserved it. But there was always that voice at the back of his mind. Not his conscience, not an inner voice mocking him. No, this voice was deeper, more vivacious, and slurring just slightly. _John_ , it said, _someday I’ll live in Sussex and raise bees. Bees are amazing…_ Granted, the words had been said while drunk, so who knew how much merit the idea had.

Funny that instead it was John who had ended up in Sussex. It wasn’t planned, necessarily. But when he’d decided he could no longer live on his own (read: when Rosie argued with him until he’d acquiesced), he’d let her choose the place. It was beautiful and quiet…and yet John missed London more than he thought he could. He missed the sounds and the smells, the excellent restaurants and beautiful architecture, the way the city never slept, except maybe on those coldest nights when everyone escaped indoors.

Being in London was the only way he could remember the old days without hurting too much. Baker Street was impossible—he’d take Mrs. Hudson out to eat rather than drop by her place—and Scotland Yard wasn’t much better. But when he’d turn down a street, only to remember the decapitated head they’d once found, or the park where he’d chased a clown at 3am, those were happier memories. He liked coming across those.

London kept him busy and mostly happy. Here, in this quiet seaside town, John had too much time for memories and musings. He wondered if Sherlock had ever got his bees. He wondered whether he had stayed in the detective business after…after. He wondered if Sherlock was even still alive. Mrs. Hudson, before she passed, while not speaking of Sherlock’s goings on specifically, at least let John know that he was still alive. But once she was gone—peacefully, in her sleep—even that slight connection with Sherlock had disappeared. It was what John needed, but that didn’t mean he had to _like_ it.

John lost all rights to Sherlock’s life after that awful day in the morgue. In fact, he had lost it long before that, when Sherlock performed a miracle and returned from the dead. When John had refused, on some level, to forgive his friend for leaving him alone for two years. When he kept letting moments pass, moments when he could have spoken up, said something about his feelings. He saw so clearly after Sherlock’s return that, not only did Sherlock realize the magnitude of his mistake in not trusting John with the truth, but that his friend had an amazing capacity for love. When Sherlock was shown to be most human, John had turned his back, pretended to forgive but refused to acknowledge his own love for his friend.

He ignored those feelings until the day everything came spilling out during the Culverton Smith debacle. During those moments in the morgue, John had experienced everything as if he was an outside observer. Decades later, it was much the same. But he had known in that moment that it was a breaking point. He saw what bottling up his feelings did, and he couldn’t hurt anyone else like that again, most especially Sherlock.

So he ran. It was only for Rosie’s sake that he kept in touch with Molly, Mrs. Hudson, and Greg. But even those friendships were never quite the same again. John didn’t think they had forgiven him—though whether it was the beating itself or John’s turning tail after, he didn’t know. But apart from those three people, John left it all behind. He got a new flat, a new job. He would’ve got new friends, except he had decided that was a bad idea. He worked, he came home, he tried to be the best father he could be. That was his entire life. When Rosie left home, he worked more. He volunteered with disabled vets and Doctors without Borders. He worked in a community garden. He called Rosie every week.

And now here he was, eighty-six and in an assisted living community. Alone. He still had Rosie, of course, but she had a husband, a job, and two kids to worry about. And they were all up in Manchester. They visited when they could, or had him up for holidays. But for the most part, John was alone. He still didn’t make friends. The nurses and other residents were kind to him, but he didn’t play cards or gossip or do water aerobics, and he rarely spoke to anyone at mealtimes. He sat in his chair, stared at the sea, and wondered what Sherlock was up to. Amazing that so few years together could weigh so heavily on his present.

“John?”

John startled out of his reverie. That voice.

Even after all these years, John could recognize it. Just like a whiff of a certain cologne in a crowd could stop him in his tracks, that voice would always make his hand clench and his eyes close.

“God. John. It’s you.” There was a tremor in the tone.

John couldn’t look. The voice was difficult enough to deal with. Seeing him would be too much. Though whether just seeing the man after so long or seeing him grown old would be worse, John wasn’t sure. Both, probably. So John continued facing the window—it was rainy today—though he took a too wobbly breath.

“Sherlock,” he eventually said, when the man came no closer and said nothing else.

There was a quick inhale, as if Sherlock was surprised John had acknowledged him. The man wasn’t alone in that surprise. But John plowed on.

“I suppose it’s too much to ask that this be a coincidence.”

“What do we say about coincidences?”

John laughed bitterly. “Yeah. So what brings you out of the city?”

“You,” Sherlock replied simply, and only then did he walk into John’s peripheral vision. He stopped a distance away, and rather than look at John, he stared out the window, as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed to both talk to and look at John. John wondered the same.

“In need of a doctor?” John asked. It was inane, but he was at a loss. Why was Sherlock there? After so long. After what John had put him through. After a disaster of a friendship.

“Of a sort.”

“I’m retired, you know.”

“Yes.”

Neither spoke for a while. They just watched the rain.

So many things John had wished to say to Sherlock over the years. _I’m sorry_ , chiefly, but also _I miss you_ , _I love you_ , and _I never want to not wake up to your face_. He wanted to tell Sherlock all about Rosie and her family. He wanted to ask about Sherlock’s life. Was he married? How much longer had he worked as a detective? Did he sell honey at farmers’ markets?

Had he forgiven John?

The last was the reason he could not get his mouth to work, even to ask if the rain bothered Sherlock’s joints like it did John’s. So John sat in his chair and Sherlock stood at the window, like they had done so many times so many years ago.

After an age, John heard the inhale that meant Sherlock was about to lay it all out. Good. If the silence lasted much longer, John wasn’t sure that he could stop himself from standing up and burying his face into Sherlock’s neck and just staying there forever.

“The thing is,” Sherlock began, as if they were in the middle of a conversation—which, perhaps they were in Sherlock’s head; he had always acted that way before—“I was lost without my blogger. I said it long ago, and it remained the truth for ever after. I never got him back after… I came back, but I made a mistake, one that I’ll never stop regretting. Of course, I always try to learn from my mistakes, and for some time after, I thought I had learned from my greatest. It was not for some years after we last saw each other that I realized I’d made it a second time. I thought about going to see you then, to ask for your forgiveness again, but by then, so many years had passed, and you obviously had no interest in seeing me ever again. I let those thoughts sway me for some time. But when it was time to leave London, the only place I could imagine being home—other than Baker Street—was with you.”

John started a bit at that confession, but continued staring straight ahead, though it was a near thing. He clenched his hands and breathed deep instead.

“I know it’s silly and sentimental, given the short amount of time that we were friends and the length of time since we last spoke, but when I think about the time in my life when I was happiest, when I felt most right, it was with you. And now that I’m ready to be comfortable in my last days—or rather, after years of trying to be comfortable on my own—I thought that maybe…”

It was funny. Though John had left, he had never stopped thinking of Sherlock as his best friend. Partially because he never tried to have friends again, but also because no one could ever replace Sherlock as the most important person, bar Rosie, in his life. But it was John’s decision to cut off the relationship, so if anyone should have put a delineation on their friendship, it should have been him. Instead it was Sherlock. John felt a pang in his chest. Of course, it was what he deserved, after what he’d done.

And now… and now what? He couldn’t say he forgave Sherlock. There was nothing left to forgive. Sherlock had made no mistake. He had done as John had wished—but not what John actually _wanted_ —and stayed away.

“You’re an idiot,” he finally said, his voice a bit rough. He cleared it.

Sherlock huffed. “Nothing new there.”

John allowed the corner of his mouth to lift. “Indeed.”

“Is that an overall review of me, or am I an idiot about something in particular?”

The other corner lifted. The rain continued to streak the window. “A bit of column A and a bit of column B. Though I suppose my pronouncement was in regard to your… speech just now.”

“Oh?” Sherlock’s voice, so different and yet so the same. John’s throat ached.

“Yup. You’ve always been so self-sacrificing. I mean, you’re an arrogant and self-centered arse, don’t get me wrong, but when it really mattered, you were always willing to be the martyr. I used to think it was just another facet of your narcissism, playing a role so people would watch you in amazement of your sacrifice. But then Mary died and Culverton Smith happened, and I realized that you did it out of love and the feeling that other people mattered more than you.”

“That’s not–”

“Yes, it damn well is true, you tit. Now let me finish.”

John risked the tiniest glance to his right, just enough to see Sherlock’s nod. His hair was gray now, and instead of a suit jacket, he wore a cardigan with his slacks. John looked away before he allowed himself to take more in. He gathered his scattered thoughts.

“I also realized that I was the worst person for you to have around. You were so much better than I was, but you were willing to give your life up for me more than once. I couldn’t–” His voice broke. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and counted to three. Without opening his eyes, and with a voice that barely worked, he continued. “I couldn’t let that happen. Not when you had so much more to give the world. So yeah, you’re an idiot, for sacrificing too much too many times, but more specifically for thinking you needed forgiveness for anything. _You_ were the wronged party. Not me.” John breathed deep again. His words felt so inadequate. It was like he had so much to say that his brain didn’t know what to choose, so it dammed all the words up instead.

There was movement, and then Sherlock was sitting in the chair next to John, and he put a hand on top of John’s still clenched fist. John felt a sob rise up, but choked it down.

“I’ll forgive you, if you admit we were both idiots.”

The sob came out then, mixed with a laugh. Something inside him broke free and flew away.

“It always has to be your way, doesn’t it?”

Sherlock hummed.

“Fine. Your way. We were both idiots.”

“John?”

Sherlock stayed silent until John finally, _finally_ turned to look at Sherlock straight on. His curly hair was gray, his shoulders stooped, and lines covered his face. John had never seen a more gorgeous sight in his life. Tears welled, but did not yet fall.

Sherlock smiled softly, and his eyes, too, shone with tears. “I forgive you.”

John let the tears fall then, and if he had been able to see, he thought Sherlock might have done the same. After a moment, the hand still on top of his tugged. John looked through blurry eyes to see Sherlock standing, and the tugging continued until John also stood.

Before he realized what was happening, Sherlock had enfolded him in a hug. He still smelled the same. John’s sobs grew louder. _I’m so sorry_ clogged up his throat, along with the tears. He tried to take deep breaths, but the tears continued. Sherlock continued to hold him, his soft cardigan acting as John’s tissue. John finally got his arms around Sherlock’s middle and held on for dear life.

Another age passed before he could control himself. He hiccupped a couple of times and felt a rumble in Sherlock’s chest. It was the most amazing thing he’d ever felt. “Shut up,” he said without removing himself from the comforting body around his.

“I’m not laughing at you. Well, maybe a little.” Sherlock sighed. “I’m just so…relieved.”

John understood. He felt it too. Even with the crying jag, his body felt a need to release…something. He chuckled.

Sherlock chuckled.

John giggled into Sherlock’s neck.

Sherlock snuffled in John’s hair.

Moments later they both were laughing, so hard that only their arms wrapped around each other kept them upright. They must have looked like loons. John didn’t care. He had his best friend back. Easy as that. The thought quieted him a bit.

“Would it have been this easy, years ago?” he asked once Sherlock, too, had calmed.

Sherlock sighed and rubbed his cheek against John’s head. “I think not. Ten years ago? Yes. Twenty years, probably. But right after? There was too much in the way. _We_ were in the way. Even if we both had wanted it then, we would have tripped over ourselves, probably made it worse. But time and old age have eased the way now.”

John nodded. It made sense. As much as he had longed to see Sherlock again, even just a week after, he had still been so angry, first at Sherlock, then at himself, then at the world for putting them in those positions to begin with. It took fatherhood and talking with disabled vets to give him some perspective, to step back and accept the choices he had made, to forgive himself.

Though he wouldn’t give up Rosie for the world, a part of him still wished he and Sherlock had faced the music much sooner. That John hadn’t fought the attraction, that Sherlock had realized that sentiment wasn’t a weakness. Then maybe Sherlock wouldn’t have left, and John would have eventually had the guts to come clean about his feelings.

But he couldn’t live on what ifs. He had to live in the now. And although it was far too late for his desires, he had Sherlock now, and he had forgiveness. And he had to be okay with that. They would deal with what time they had left.

“When do you go back?” he asked, pulling back—only slightly—from Sherlock. No more hesitating or worrying. He didn’t care if it was only in friendship, he would touch Sherlock as much as he goddamn pleased. Sherlock seemed okay with this.

“Back?” Sherlock frowned.

“To London, or wherever you live now.”

Sherlock stared at John, frown still in place, before his eyes—his gorgeous, amazing eyes—softened. “Idiot. What did I say at the beginning? You’re my home. I’m not going anywhere.”

His throat ached. His heart thumped. His hands clenched around Sherlock’s cardigan. “Ever?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Well, I will die eventually, but until then, I’m staying here, yes. My things should be moved in by now.”

“Moved in?” John knew what Sherlock meant, but he seemed unable to form any intelligent words.

“To my rooms here. Coincidentally, just four doors down from yours.”

John raised an eyebrow.

“Completely coincidental, I promise. That is, I didn’t ask the last resident to die. But I did ask management to find me the closest rooms to yours as possible.”

“Awfully confident we’d work things out.”

Sherlock smiled, and his eyes darted back to the window briefly. “Just hopeful,” he said softly.

John left it alone, but he knew he’d tease Sherlock about it more later.

“Care to give me a tour of your new digs, Mr. Holmes?”

Sherlock’s soft smile brightened into the grin of old. The real one, not the fake one. “My pleasure, Dr. Watson.”

\---

They slotted back into each other’s lives as if forty-plus years hadn’t passed. John was still plagued with thoughts of what ifs and why nots from time to time, but mostly he just enjoyed getting to know Sherlock again. He was the same, but yet so different. Softer, sweeter, slower. He was still acerbic and rude, but far less frequently than before. He was still smart as whip, of course—and thank God his mind was still sharp—but sometime during the decades apart, he had learned to calm his mind, to not need stimulation at all times.

He admitted to a couple of incidents where drugs had returned—one soon after John’s disappearance and the second ten years later—but the second time had led him to meet Liliana, a counselor who refused to give up, who asked and then cajoled and then actually yelled, until she and Sherlock had worked through his problems. “She reminds me of you,” Sherlock said, when he told the story. “Stubborn, and such a hard arse,” he teased with a grin. “I still keep in touch with her, actually. I’m her son’s godfather.” He looked a little sad as he admitted this, obviously thinking of his first godchild.

John’s throat ached. A part of him wanted to be jealous that he had been replaced. That Sherlock had continued to have friends, when John had had none. But that wasn’t fair. It had been John’s choice to forgo relationships. And he’d had Rosie, Mrs. Hudson, Greg, and Molly—still had Molly in fact, though at their age, it was down to a few emails a year, and mostly to one-up each other with grandkid pictures.

But mostly, John was proud of Sherlock. Not only that he had finally beat his addiction and made peace with his brain, but that he hadn’t given up on sentiment, despite all the pain it had caused him. And so, while there would probably always be a tinge of jealousy over Liliana, John chose to focus on being grateful. Without her, John may have never had this opportunity to know Sherlock again. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that John learned that he was actually the catalyst for Sherlock meeting Liliana.

John was telling more stories about Rosie. Sherlock seemed to love them best. His eyes would grow soft, and the pride and love on his face when John detailed another milestone made him look just like a proud parent. Though there were hints of wistfulness in them as well, which made John’s heart ache.

“I wanted you there, watching her grow,” John blurted out after yet another of those looks. “I missed you, of course, but it was hardest when she learned to walk, when she said her first word, when she passed her GSCEs, and you weren’t there to share it with me, and with her.”

Old John would have hesitated to speak words that hewed so close to something more than friendship. Words that showed he longed for a romantic partnership with Sherlock. But this John—the actual old-age John—had no patience for that ridiculousness. Sherlock had pretty much come out and said he wanted a romantic relationship as well within minutes of his reappearance in John’s life. They had both kept their interactions platonic so far, but there were hints in both of their words that showed they were at least open to more. John didn’t think they were hiding out of fear or worry, more that they hadn’t spoken in over forty years, and they both wanted to be sure before they moved to the next stepping stone.

“I wanted to be there too,” Sherlock admitted softly. “I…” he sighed. “I saw the two of you once, in a park. She was ten and doing summersaults on the grass. You were watching her from a bench, smiling. I thought I would die from the beauty and the pain of it. I almost went up to you, but I talked myself out of it. I had seen pictures of her before, of course, from the others. I think they hoped that if they showed me enough of them, I would cave and try to talk to you. It almost worked, so many times. But seeing her alive and in person…” Sherlock took a shaky breath. “It was the hardest time I ever had walking away. Well, except…”

John nodded, knowing exactly what Sherlock didn’t say. Except at Bart’s. The day he’d first walked away from John. He wondered what he would’ve done if Sherlock had approached him in the park. Would ten years have been enough time? Could they have found forgiveness then? There was no way to know. Wait. Ten years.

“That was around the time of your–”

“Clever boy.” Sherlock smiled bitterly. “My last relapse, yeah. It was– It was what caused it,” he added reluctantly.

John knew Sherlock would’ve rather not have admitted it. He didn’t want John to know he had caused Sherlock even more suffering, no matter how inadvertently. But that’s what made things different now. Sherlock didn’t hide his feelings from John, and John didn’t bottle his up like they didn’t exist. They were different now. They were better.

“I went home that day, and couldn’t stop thinking that I could’ve been a part of that, had I not taken the coward’s way out. That could’ve been my–” Sherlock’s breath shuddered.

John made a decision then. One he should have thought of the day Sherlock had arrived. “I’ll ask Rosie to bring the family down. It’s a three-day holiday weekend next weekend. We can rent a house on the beach. The kids have always love that, even in the middle of winter.”

Sherlock’s eyes widened. “I get to meet…”

John’s chest hurt. “Of course. She’s your goddaughter, Sherlock. You should’ve… I never should have… Even if I had never wanted to see you again, I should have found a way to let you see her. It was unfair of me to–”

“It’s the past, John. We’re not wallowing, remember?” Sherlock put a hand over John’s. “Are you sure she’ll–”

John laughed. “Ask her how many times she begged me to make up with you.”

“She knew about me?”

God, why did their lives have to go the way they did? They’d made the pact not to wallow, but it was so hard when there were so many times they had wished that things could have been different.

John sighed. “I left because I thought you would be better off without me. I never once thought I was better off without you. Rosie grew up hearing everything about you. She could tell the whole of the Baskerville case by the time she was four. She spent ages six to thirteen debating the professions of detective and gymnast. She knew everything I knew about you—well, the sanitized versions.” He smirked at that last bit, and Sherlock did the same.

“So which did she choose?”

“Hmm?”

“Gymnast or detective?”

John’s grin widened. “She’s a librarian. She could have gone far with the gymnastics, her coach wanted her to train full-time and try out for an Olympic spot, but our girl got all the smarts, and she decided she wanted to focus on something a little more long-term. Unfortunately, she hated science class, so she went the humanities route.”

John noticed Sherlock’s bright eyes along with the smile that widened when John called Rosie “our girl,” but he didn’t say anything, just put his other hand on top of Sherlock’s, which was still on top of John’s.

“So. Next weekend, you say?”

\---

That night, there was a light knock at John’s door, but he heard the beep that signaled someone had put the correct code into the lock before he could rise and see who it was. Of course, there was only one person who would both know (read: suss out) the code and have the audacity to enter without being invited. John smiled, but didn’t get out of bed.

There was enough light from the moon and a nightlight in the en suite to let John see Sherlock enter the room, but his face was shadowed. Sherlock paused at the foot of the bed a moment before walking to the far side of the bed, but he hesitated there again. John reached behind him to pull down the covers. Sherlock took it for the signal it was and crawled into the bed, scooting close enough to spoon John, and his arms went around John’s waist as if they’d been doing this for decades, rather than for the first time.

John sighed in contentment and put an arm over Sherlock’s, squeezing his friend’s hand. Sherlock rubbed his nose along John’s neck.

“Did you talk to ‘our girl’?” He asked quietly.

“Mmhhmm,” John said sleepily. “She, Kyle, Mina, and Jamie will drive down Friday evening, and they’ll stay through lunch on Monday. She’s already booked a cottage. I think she’s a tad excited. Good thing you came in here tonight, by the way. It was either going to be the two of us sharing a bed or the twins roughing it in the lounge. We would have never heard the end of that.”

“Don’t you think we’ll get earful for sharing a bed?”

John huffed a laugh. “True.”

“We don’t have to–”

“Don’t be an idiot, Sherlock. Your mine now, and I’m never letting you go.”

Sherlock was silent long enough for John to think there would be no reply. Just as he was drifting to sleep, though, he heard a quiet “Promise?” He tightened the arm on top of Sherlock’s, then let sleep lure him away with dreams of what the future held.

**Author's Note:**

> This not the story I meant to write. The re-meeting was only supposed to be the set-up to a more sci-fi-type story, but retirement!lock got it's sticky fingers on my brain and my little set-up expanded. Since this part of the story is fairly different in genre from where the remainder of the story goes, I'm separating it out. If all you want is retirement!lock, you're welcome to get off here. Be safe, and thanks for riding along. 
> 
> If, however, you'd like to see John and Sherlock get a second chance at love (as younger men than they are in this story), hang on to your hats, ladies, gentlemen, and those of you not falling into either category, because Part 2 is headed your way, with futuristic technology vaguely explained, a new post-Reichenbach life, and Sherlock and John getting what they really deserved. Subscribe to the series. Part 2 is written. I'll have it up as soon as I stop fighting with the details.
> 
> Find me on Tumbler [@vateacancameos](http://vateacancameos.tumblr.com/).


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